LETTERS

TransforMED and rebuilding family medicine

Fam Pract Manag. 2007 Jul-Aug;14(7):15-16.

After reading “TransforMED Tries to Rebuild Family Medicine” [May 2007], I am reminded that the bottom line drives our system. We are faced with the difficulty of being physicians, taking care of sick patients and having to accept inadequate reimbursement by payers. A true physician will not abandon a patient regardless of reimbursement or failure of the health care system. The AAFP, American College of Physicians and American Academy of Pediatrics, which are the leaders in primary care in this country, should come together to gain political power and drive health care to a better place. If this is not done, I can see the most powerful country in the world losing primary health care.

Juan R. Perez, MD

El Paso, Texas

With regard to TransforMED, I think the AAFP's efforts would be better directed at changing the U.S. health care system. We are being slowly destroyed by an insurance industry whose sole purpose is to maximize profits for its shareholders and corporate officers at the expense of patients and physicians. Insurance companies have the power or, rather, the money. We have lost control of our future. We have lost control of medicine as a profession of intellectual pursuit, curiosity and independence. We are no more than factory workers on an assembly line. We have been commoditized.

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